Although Bailey hates to take the cat on road trips, the grandmother does this because she believes the cat is not able to stay home alone. Along the way to their destination, somewhere in Georgia, the grandmother realizes that an old plantation that she once visited is nearby. She described the house to Bailey making it seem more amusing so that he changes his mind and takes the kids to this so called plantation. The road that they turned into was a dangerous dirt road. They drove for miles and no plantation.
The grandmother wanted to go and see her friends in Tennessee instead of Florida, which is where the family wanted to go. The Grandmother lied and said that the Misfit would be in Florida instead of Tennessee. She did this so Baily, her son, would change his mind about where the family would go for the trip. Throughout the story, the Grandmother is very noisy. She is very concerned with small ideas.
The grandmother then brings up the topic after noting an article about an escaped convict called “The Misfit” who was heading in the same destination, which was Florida. After all of the disagreements about not wanting to go to Florida, the family still insisted that they were going and nothing will deter them from going. The very next morning the family sets on the long-awaited trip to Florida. The grandmother hides her cat (Pitty Sing) into a basket in the back of the car—she had this notion that she couldn’t “bear” to leave her cat at home while they are on vacation. Also, she wore a dress and a hat with flower designs so people can discern that she is “a lady” if there is any accident that might ensue.
Flannery O’Connor should have titled the story “A Good PERSON Is Hard to Find” this would have fit with the theme of what she was trying to get across to the audience. O’Connor used gestures to grab her audience and what better than an old Southern woman and a sociopath killer. In the end after years of acting like a good lady and good Christian the Grandmother has a revelation and understands that it is not her life that needs salvation and hopefully for the Misfit one good deed deserves another and he will be able to change his course in life and become a man that looks to help instead of hurt the fellow
The Tragic Fall of the Family In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, the author creates a character called The Misfit who kills a family. The story begins with the family discussing where to travel on their vacation. The grandmother tries to tell the family that there is an escaped convict in Florida where they are travelling and that they should not go there. But instead the family does not listen to her and they are destined for tragedy. There are many elements that foreshadow the tragic events to come.
The grandmother frequently criticizes others on their behavior, such as when she complains about vacationing in Florida where the escaped convict could be and how it would weigh heavily on her conscience. She criticizes the children’s mother, accusing her of not wanting to travel to a place that would allow her children to “be broad” (261). She criticizes the children for not being respectful of their native state Georgia. She never criticizes herself, not even when she realizes that the house with the secret panel she had been thinking of (and the whole cause of the detour) was not in Georgia but actually Tennessee. In her final moments,
There is an internal conflict, as "the old lady," the grandmother, who lives with her married son, his wife and their three children. The theme is that age doesn't determine wisdom and persistence does not always get you what you want. The irony of the story is the outcome, and irony courses through the events and characters, especially with the grandmother and her granddaughter, June Star. Grandmother had to go everywhere the family went and wouldn't stay home to be queen for a day or for a million dollars, which implies she wasn't wanted but she couldn't be gotten rid of. Grandmother is the first one in the car, as not to be left behind.
She is the one that is the most guilty of commiting sins and not following the word of God. First she sneaks her cat on the trip even though she knows deep within her heart that her son Bailey, “wouldn’t like to arrive at the motel with a cat”(332). The grandmother also lies to the children about a secret panel that is in a house along the way to Florida. She does this to merely fulfill her own desire to go and see this plantation house. After a while of riding on the bumpy road to this house she realizes that this is not the road and that the house is in Tennesse but she keeps it to herself so that she can avoid “Bailey’s wrath”(336).
A Good Man Is Hard To Find When Misfit says: “She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life" he means that it took the grandmother’s very life being threatened for her to have an epiphany and actually embrace her religion’s message of the gospel that God’s grace was for everyone—including Misfit that she had merely claimed to believe up until the very end. In that moment just before her death, she recognizes him as her child and therefore a child of God. She had been a hypocrite up until that point and all of her pleadings for him to pray were for the sake of her own welfare and not concern for his soul. She was trying to manipulate him. She barely even reacted to the obvious murder
Turpin and the grandmother from “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” The grandmother was a very snobby woman. She considered herself to be a “lady” and superior to common people. The grandmother is also very judgmental as seen in her assumptions that black people did not have the things that she had and that Europe was the cause of the things being the way they were at the time. Mrs. Turpin is also judgmental and snobby. She too thinks that she is above some people because she has a little bit of everything.